Blade said, “That’s strange. The whole time I was out there fighting the Federation, rebelling, playing the traitor, all I could think of was how easy it must’ve been for him to let me go. I always thought you were his favorite. And you always thought I was his. Maybe the truth of it is that he loved us both, just in different ways and degrees.”
Drake knew that was true, but childhood, as short as it had been, was always only a single step behind him. He had lived his entire life trying to please a father who had been distant and incredibly hard to please. “You know what I wish? That he would’ve rebelled sooner. I wish he would have thrown his lot in with the rebels and just stated his cause. ”
Blade said, “I don’t think he could throw his lot in with the rebels before he did, I mean, he had me to consider. If there’s anything that I wish, it’s that I wish I had known what he had done for me all those years. What you had done for me all those years. I never got around to thanking you for that.”
Drake’s hands were steady on the controls. “You’re not actually thanking me now either.”
Blade said, “I will thank you when you get my ass out of this wormhole and back into the universe that I know and understand.”
Drake said, “I’m going to consider that a vow.”
Blade said, “Good, because it was a vow.”
The ship sailed on, space wrinkling around it. Blade spoke again. “I can see it. The way that space folds here. It’s as if somebody took a corner of the universe and tied it into a clever little knot.”
Drake said, “I believe that is just what they did.”
There was a high note of tension in Blade’s next question. “Do you think that is what the weapon is? Do you think it somehow has the ability to change space and time?”
“I wish I knew. I guess we’ll find out.”
Drake didn’t think that’s what it was. If that was all that the weapon was, and all that it was capable of doing, then there would’ve been no need to hide it within its own little trick. His stomach let a little gurgle rise up and acid followed in its wake.
This weapon that he was so determined to have, what would it do?
It seemed that an eternity passed, but eventually they battled their way back to the planet made of fire. As they reached it, Drake, leaning close to the spaceships observation windows, let out a low cry of triumph.
“There! See it? That small sliver of light to the right? That is the door!”
Blade and Talon both stared at that narrow sliver of sliver light laced with gold along its edges. Drake smiled, “Quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
Blade said, “I have long known that the most beautiful things are generally the most deadly.”
Drake nodded “You’d be correct. Now that we’re here, we have to figure out how to open this door.”
Margie spoke up from behind them. “I know how.” All the men standing there turned to face her. She was flanked by the other women, and as she stepped forward, the other women fell into step.
There was an uneven number of people on that ship. Drake was the only one there without a mate. That thought hit him hard right in the middle of his heart. The women walking toward him were all strong and powerful women in their own right. They had all found mates who were equally strong and equally powerful. Where was his mate?
Why in the hell was he worried about such a thing, and now? It wasn’t something that he thought of much, but here lately he’d been considering that more and more. Maybe having women aboard the ship, women who were so obviously mated to the other men there, was making him soft and sentimental.
Marge spoke again, shattering his thoughts. “You tried to go in before, didn’t you?”
Drake nodded. “I did, and with no success.”
Marge came closer. A glow lifted up through the layers of her skin. Jeval reached out a hand, but she ignored it and stepped closer yet to Drake. Her voice lowered and changed a bit. “The door is the way out. The way in is not the door.”
More riddles. Irritation sizzled along his central nervous system. “Please just speak plainly.”
Talon said, “It’s not her talking; it’s the Oracle.”
This again. All right. Let it be. Drake said, “Can the Oracle speak plainly?”
Marge lifted a hand. Her fingers pointed to the far left side of the slash of pure light and energy. “We go in by what we would imagine would be the exit. When you fly into a space rip—”
“You get out by flying horizontally until you break free of its grip!” Talon turned back to the controls, taking the ship away from the light and toward the darkness beyond it.
They all stood there, not speaking as the ship soared toward what looked like emptiness, but wasn’t, because as the ship hit that space, it changed.
